


Hug You I Must

by spideywriting (catch_you_later)



Series: whumptober 2019 [17]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Embrace, Families of Choice, Family Fluff, Fluff, Gen, Hugs, Iron Dad, Peter B. Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Benjamin Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker Gets a Hug, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Platonic Cuddling, Spidey son, Touch-Starved, Whumptober 2019, altno.14, do not copy to another site, no.31
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 18:31:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21257726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catch_you_later/pseuds/spideywriting
Summary: Everyone needs a hug every once in a while.Especially Peter Parker.





	Hug You I Must

**Author's Note:**

> Un-betaed.

Sometimes Peter Parker wakes up feeling…off. Not in the way that he’s about to get sick or anything, but like something is lacking and he can’t quite figure out what it is. Some of the time it starts to bug him until it grows into a full-blown irritability – or crankiness, as Mr. Stark would put it. But most of the time it just goes away eventually.

He doesn’t really know what causes it, just notes that it usually happens when May has many evening or night shifts in a row during the week and Ned is busy with his extra clubs. On those nights, when the weird ache in his bones gets too much, he usually ends up leaving for his patrol earlier than usual and staying longer, too.

May has had an unusually long row of night shifts for a week and a half now and Peter’s been waking with the strange feeling for seven days and counting. He’s never gone this long without the feeling fading away and to his consternation, it doesn’t show any signs of receding.

Instead, he’s getting worse.

It doesn’t make any sense. It’s just a feeling. Like something’s crawling under his skin. A slow, buzzing current keeping him constantly alert, on-guard. His hands itching like they want to do something, but don’t know what.

He keeps flinching when people get near him, senses overly focused on the warmth they emit and how close they are to him. Yet, when the person moves away, there’s a creeping sense of—of loss.

But still, it’s just a feeling, not an injury, not anything serious, yet somehow it still…hurts. It hurts in a gaping emptiness inside him. It hurts a bit like loneliness hurts, but it’s not loneliness. He has felt loneliness, _is_ feeling loneliness, but this is something distinctive, something different. Similar, but different at the same time.

He can’t really explain it.

And he can’t fix it either.

He doesn’t even think he needs to until one night it almost gets him killed.

He’s fighting a bunch of Italian mafiosos when it happens.

He barely dodges a punch, dropping to a crouch and lifting his wrists to trap the mafioso to the wall with his webs, when one of the humongous bodyguards lifts him up in a crushing bear-hug. Literally crushing, because Peter can feel his ribs bending, cracking under the force.

For a second he just hangs there, limp with shock.

_What is happening? I didn’t sense him. _

One of his ribs snap.

“Che due palle!” he curses, grabbing fast onto the man’s side and shooting a close-range taser web at him. The man lets him go and falls down twitching.

One of the other men spits out a “Vaffanculo!”, and shoots at him.

“Rude!” Peter calls out as he flips away. Right into the way of another bodyguard, who takes his arm in a bruising grip and tries to punch to punch him to the stomach.

Now, usually that kind of thing doesn’t work on him. His spidey-sense and his reflexes make him an expert in avoiding punches.

But for some reason, it seems that his spidey-sense is out of commission.

Meaning that he gets a full-force punch onto his already cracked (maybe broken) ribs.

The world whites out.

When he can see again, his ears are ringing and his ribs hurt like _hell_.

And he’s hanging upside-down on a fire escape.

_Huh_. It looks like some of his reflexes are still working.

He quickly shoots down some webs to detain the remaining gangsters and then shoots another one to swing away. Which, _ow_, isn’t very fun with ribs that are most likely broken.

“Peter, my sensors detect two broken ribs and three cracked ones.”

_Oh. Definitely broken, then._

“I recommend calling Mr. Stark or the Baby Monitor Protocol will trigger an automatic call.”

Peter flops down onto the nearest rooftop and sighs dramatically. He’ll start his journey to the tower soon. He just…needs a second.

The concrete feels nice and cold against his back. Solid. Dependable.

“…Fine. Call him.”

His skin itches again. His hands twitch.

Mr. Stark answers almost immediately.

“Peter? Shouldn’t you be on patrol? Did something happen?”

The barrage of questions is a bit overwhelming, but not unexpected. Ever since the plane crash they’ve been spending more and more time doing actual mentoring (and building stuff and watching movies and just relaxing) during which Peter has found out that Mr. Stark tends to be quite the mother hen about his health.

He still remembers the earful he got when he had hacked again the suit to hide a handful of injuries, resulting in him blacking out from a concussion.

(He hasn’t had the heart to tell Mr. Stark about the injuries he had gotten after the fight with the Vulture.)

“Uhh. Yeah. My spidey-sense isn’t working and I got a real bear hug, and not the fun kind you know, and now my ribs are broken and I don’t think I can swing back. Can you send Happy to get me? I’m uhhh…..somewhere in Brooklyn, I think?”

“Changing neighborhoods, are you now, Spidey?” There’s a mild reproach in Mr. Stark’s tone and a low whining noise in the background.

“Well they work here too! I had to catch them sometime and they had deals in Queens, too,” Peter grumbles.

His heart is still beating weirdly fast even though he’s long stopped moving.

“Anyway, you said your Peter Tingle isn’t working?”

“Don—Don’t call it that!” Peter squeaks indignantly. Mr. Stark just chuckles.

“Answer the question, kid.” He can hear the smile in Mr. Stark’s voice and considers not answering out of spite, but in the end worry wins.

“I don’t know why, but it during multiple occasions in the fight, it didn’t warn me like it usually does.”

“Odd. This hasn’t happened before?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

Mr. Stark hums thoughtfully, then changes the subject abruptly.

“Knowing you, you swung onto a roof, right?”

His casually nonchalant voice makes Peter eye the sky suspiciously.

“Yes, why?”

Mr. Stark doesn’t answer, but a second later Peter can hear the whine of the repulsors speeding towards him.

“Mr. Stark! You didn’t have to! I would’ve been fine with Happy coming to get me—”

“Aren’t you glad to see me kid?” Mr. Stark’s voice is deceivingly light.

“Of—of course! I just thought…you’d have something more important to do,” Peter admits shyly, looking at the side.

He looks up again at the sound of the suit clanging down on the roof. The face visor retracts, revealing Mr. Stark’s fondly glimmering eyes.

“Like I could miss any excuse to escape the investor’s meeting. You provided the perfect excuse.”

“Oh. Thanks, then. I guess.”

“Don’t thank me. I should thank _you_. Now hop on, young padawan.”

Peter smiles more brightly at the reference “…I think I’m the Jedi Master in this situation,” he can’t help but quip before he clambers carefully onto Mr. Stark’s back.

Mr. Stark snorts. “Keep telling yourself that, Pete.”

He holds on tightly as they launch off the roof and head towards the tower, the electric current beneath his skin slowing down a little.

At the tower Karen’s prognosis is proven correct, and after hearing that May is on a night shift all night Mr. Stark insists Peter to stay the night at the tower.

They’ve done this enough times after lab evenings stretched into late nights that Peter doesn’t need much persuading.

(Besides, he doesn’t want to go back to the <strike>lonely</strike> cold apartment.)

They settle on the couch with a gigantic bowl of popcorn and bottles of raspberry lemonade May had gifted Mr. Stark on his last birthday. For some reason, this time it’s really easy to convince Mr. Stark to put on _Empire Strikes Back_.

Peter has a feeling it has something to do with the pronounced black bags he has developed under his eyes during these two weeks of later and later patrols. He’d be slightly offended at the sign of pity if he wasn’t so exhausted. It seems that with the adrenaline dropping, he can’t even enjoy his favorite movie properly.

Instead, five minutes in, and his eyelids are already drooping.

Still, the itchy electrical current is back and Peter can’t relax enough to actually nod off.

It’s frustrating.

Peter has nodded off and snapped himself awake repeatedly almost ten minutes, when Mr. Stark finally disturbs the silence, sighing deeply.

“Come here, kid.” He turns towards Peter and opens his arms invitingly.

For a moment, Peter just stares at him owlishly.

“Why?” He asks eventually, when Mr. Stark only continues to hold his arms open.

“Because I know the touch-starvation symptoms and you are clearly in need of a good-old cuddle. Now would you just come here and we can watch the real Master ordering the padawan around. A padawan that actually _does as he’s told_.” Mr. Stark mock-glares at him at the last bit.

Peter moves across the couch reluctantly and settles gingerly against his mentor, his head on Mr. Stark’s chest while Mr. Stark wraps his arms carefully – mindful of his ribs – around him.

For a wild second Peter feels a pressing urge to jump up from the couch and run away, but after a few moments he relaxes. The warm, reassuring weight around his shoulders and the slow rhythm of Mr. Stark’s breathing releasing the tension in his muscles slowly but surely. Dispersing the electrical current under his skin. Calming the itching. Soothing the pain.

His body feels heavier and heavier, sagging down as he drifts closer and closer to the edge of slumber.

Mr. Stark’s arms tighten around him and he hums contentedly.

“…thanks Dad.”

The silence following his statement is shocked, but Peter doesn’t notice anything as he finally slips fully into sleep.

.

.

.

“Good night, son.”

The words are spoken to the sleeping child in a quiet, reverent voice a few moments after.

Peter shifts a little, but doesn’t wake up.

Yet his dreams are full of the warm, all-encompassing feeling of being loved.

**Author's Note:**

> AAAAAAAND DONE! I can't believe I actually completed all 31 prompts in a month! And I can't believe the absolutely AWESOME comments I've gotten!! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!! You have no idea how much your kind words mean to me. <3
> 
> I'll be back later with sequels or additional chapters to some of the fics in this series, but in the meantime...  
Happy Halloween! :3


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